The Sunchaser (1996)

A highly underrated movie. I absolutely loved it. I would have given it a ten, but I didn't care for the cringe-worthy, moaning song at the end, although I do understand the intent. Jon Seda is the lost boy, a rough survivor. life hasn't been kind to him. Woody Harrelson, is the all knowing, polished, college educated doctor, who has his own secret. Two different worlds come together. Each learn something from each other, and come to respect one another. I also enjoyed the reference to Tupac's Keep Ya Head Up. The movie contains a message for today's youth, and for the adults, for people of different races, from different socio-economic backgrounds, and different points-of-view. After the good doctor spent a whole day with this kid from hell, the doctor came to face some of his own devils. It's personal and soul searching depth may make some uncomfortable. Not everyone wants to look own into the depths of their own soul.

I read some of the other reviews and I guess this movie has an emotional element to it, but I'm not wired that way. The thing that ruined the movie for me was the logic. In it, the main characters make one illogical choice after enough. One must suspend logic and believe that these characters would actually make the choices that they made and that was the painful part for me that ruined it. That and the tiring tiring stereotypes portrayed about minorities, urban life, small desert towns, (non-)religious folk, etc., etc.In the end it's a 2-hour movie, and the conclusion is so predictable and disappointing as to serve no justification for having labored through its poor plot/writing. **

Michael Cimino's "The Sunchaser", as was shown the other night on a cable station, looked faded. Working on a screen play by Charles Leavitt, Mr. Cimino doesn't add anything new to this genre.If you haven't seen the movie, please stop reading now.The choice of Woody Harrelson to play Dr. Michael Reynolds, seems to have been the wrong decision. Mr. Harrelson, a good actor, otherwise, appears out of his league and sometimes out of character. Dr. Reynolds is, at the beginning of the film, a man more interested in going to higher and better places, rather than treating some of the patients he's assigned to see. He has all the accoutrements that go with his position as a rising oncologist, including his brand new red Porsche, the status symbol of Angelinos.When he is made to go along with the sick prisoner Blue, he gets a taste of what the ghetto is like. He has no choice but to go along for a ride with this disturbed young man. Blue is a Navajo by birth, but he's been away from his roots in a while.Along the way to the Navajo sacred mountain, this odd couple experience quite a lot. Dr. Reynolds doesn't warm up to Blue at all. When a kind soul, Dr. Baumbauer, gives the pair a lift, Reynolds voices his prejudices loudly. After all, he's a man that has been trained professionally, therefore, he doesn't have time for these New Age charlatans who think the same way as Blue. The ending is predictable.Woody Harrelson is miscast in the movie. Jon Seda, as the fugitive Blue, gives an uneven performance. The only one that fares better is Anne Bancroft, in her small role of a wise doctor Reynolds and Blue meet on the road.Just out of curiosity, I watched the credits to see if the production company would have clarified that "No Porsche was damaged during the filming process".....

Only a long way can give the feeling to visit a new world. I think that the travel involve the soul to be different, at least you see different things. Micheal Cimino give us one way to look better into our souls, often too much worried about circumstantial things.